Remembering a hard day's work

Posted Tuesday, August 25, 2015, at 1:00 PM

I thought I would write about the matter of work today. The Apostle Paul wrote a letter to the Thessalonians about being good workers. He reminded them that he worked physically even when he was doing his missionary work. They were expected to do the same. He wrote in II Thessalonians 2:10 "For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, if any would not work, neither should he eat." I'm sure he was talking to able bodied men.

When children were young during my upbringing they were taught about learning how to work. Most of my learning was to chop and to pick cotton.

Most everyone knew how to chop cotton. Even 11 year old children could chop cotton. They usually were paid a lesser amount for a couple of years and then got a full day's pay. My dad was an industrious man. He didn't have a lazy bone in his body. He wouldn't let his kids have a lazy bone either.

There were sizable stumps still on our little thirty acre farm and the fence rows would grow up. This was the time when we didn't use weed killers like Glyphosate. We older children had to chop around the stumps on rainy days and also chop the fence rows. In later years dad kept his little farm so clean that it didn't grow up. In the later years much of the foliage was not bad.

When we children grew up we all made a day hand. We did not get paid for chopping our own cotton. Dad said that he paid us three times a day when we went to the eating table. But as we got older he would let us keep our money we made from other people to buy our school clothes and have a little money for our own. We did more chopping and working for others than we did in our own field. I sort of enjoyed it fore we met other people we would have never known otherwise.

I admit it sure got hot in the summer time and we often chopped barefoot. I can remember the sand so hot we would chop a place to stand in while we chopped the cotton. Our bare feet got so tough we could stand anything. I have chopped cotton for $3 a day but never for more than $5 a day. Money was scarce and the money did more for us than it would do today. I liked chopping better than picking but we could make more by picking.

I remember we rode a truck to chop cotton for a man named Oeless Brickey. We rode in the back of a truck to get there. The man's dad hired my brother and me and we would be paid $5. The farmer's wife cooked dinner for all who worked in the field that day. My, was that a good dinner. She had hot biscuits, fried chicken, gravy, vegetables and desert. We usually didn't get treated so royally.

I remember coming home after finishing the field. I was dragging my hoe behind the truck as we were coming out of the field. It hung on a root and dragged it out of hand. We had to peck on the cab to get him to stop and back up. While was was picking up my hoe he gave me a sort of lecture about not doing that. It was a good day's work, pay, and a trip up past Hornersville. I tried not to lose my hoe anymore.